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Hmm…what the hell was happening last time? That group
of assassins had Harley on the ropes and Catwoman and Poison Ivy were menaced
by a helicopter or something? I wonder if we’ll even address that here. Find out
in my review of Harley Quinn #26,
right here!

Explain
It!

Cards on the table, I shouldn’t be reviewing Harley Quinn. Truthfully, no one at this
site can do it justice. See, I don’t believe I’m the target audience, and as
soon as a consumer believes that, they start thinking about stupid shit like
“target audiences” and “demographics” and they make all kinds of unwarranted
assumptions about the person intended to receive a product, none of which have
anything to do with the product itself. I think Harley Quinn plays best to a certain disaffected segment of society
often termed “millennials,” and an ill-defined subset of that, besides. But I
can only read it as myself, and I can’t be even be sure that I’m not the
intended audience, anyway. I mean, I do like comic books, and Harley Quinn is a comic book.

To Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti’s combined
credit, they never seem to pander to any fleeting trends, nor do they adopt the
commercialized affectations of the Digital Age. They, who are older than I (and
therefore even less connected to any millennial audience, perceived or real),
don’t fall prey to the “ginchy” and the “groovy” of a Bronze Age Bob Haney
story, and this comic has never been an incessant gape in wonder at the
capabilities of the smart phone like post-Burnside Batgirl. For what it’s worth, Harley Quinn is her own, unique
character, prone to exclamations ending in “–olee” and accidentally
eviscerating bad guys before she’s had a chance to question them, but otherwise
she’s someone with a good heart, who loves her pets, her friends, and justice
for the little guy. And they don’t get a lot more “little guy” than Big Tony.

This issue continues from the last, but instead of
picking it up directly from the cliffhanger, we learn that Harley and Co have
captured some of the Unconquerable 25 to learn who sent them to ruin Harley’s
birthday party. While discussing this, we find out what happened in the between
time, which essentially was Harley Quinn going apeshit on everyone and
murdering nearly every well-equipped hired mercenary. In the fracas, Harley
Sinn releases herself from Quinn’s basement and helps with the murder spree,
something that does sit well with her benefactor/captor. But Harley Quinn and
Harley Sinn do see eye-to-eye on their hatred of the Mayor of New York City, so
Quinn plans to do something about it: run for Mayor herself! And in this city,
she could win!

I’ve given this comic a lot of heat recently for
floating so many loose threads, but as two come together in an issue unconstrained
by a back-up Paul Dini/Bret Blevins tale, I can almost discern the madness in
Palmiotti and Conner’s method. You’ve rarely seen me complain about the artwork
in Harley Quinn, and with John Timms
at the pen I’m not going to begin now. He’s paid special attention to Catwoman’s
boobs in this issue, which is perfectly fine with me. It’s nice to have a Harley Quinn story that is primarily
about one thing and will clean up some lingering storylines besides. And being
that I live in New York City now, the idea of Harley Quinn as Mayor is pretty
appealing.

Bits and
Pieces:

Using a classic storytelling device, we learn about Harley Quinn's escape from the Unconquerable 25 and who hired them simultaneously. Still, the story has lots of room to breathe with the back-up having graduated to a full-size comic book, and the time is used to gather a couple of open-ended plots and move them towards their conclusions. It's a good trend, if this series can keep up the momentum.

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